I. Case Background and Problem Statement
A.
For half a century Trader Joe’s has increasingly become many consumers’ preferred destination for grocery shopping. Founded in 1967, Joe’s focused on providing their educated and sophisticated customers, with quality service and goods. These small stores have operated in a nontraditional manner compared to their competitors in the industry. Trader Joe’s has always taken this untraditional format with their operations, merchandising, and marketing efforts. They operate small 15,000 square foot stores without modern conveniences to keep overhead costs low. Joe’s merchandising tactics include 4,000 stock keeping units(SKUs), while bigger chains carry around 50,000 SKUs. Of these 4,000 SKUs around eighty …show more content…
They avoid following industry trends and are constantly rotating new products on their shelves (10-15 new products weekly). The company also avoids the usage of distributors and wholesalers because they buy directly from their manufacturers. Trader Joe’s also maintains complete secrecy about their relationships with them. The company’s marketing efforts are skim, they mostly advertise through their “Fearless Flyer” and on the radio, rather than shipping out mass coupon sheets or paying for TV time. Despite these differences, they have succeeded in becoming one of the top supermarkets in the U.S. and boast much higher sales per square foot figure than their competitors. However, in the wake of their success, others have caught on and have tried to mimic the small neighborhood shopping experience that Trader Joe’s had originally adopted. With the company looking onward to continued expansion and growth opportunities they need to react appropriately to the rise in competition and potentially consider changing some of their old …show more content…
To do this they must increase their presence online in both social media and mobile/online advertising (More on this in technology section). Geographic distribution of population is a vital trend for future expansion efforts for Trader Joe’s and it coincides with the aging population trend as well. In catering and attracting younger customers Joe’s should consider opening new locations in states and cities they are currently not in. When viewing exhibit 3 from the case you see the store count for each state, however this was in 2013. When only considering that chart, Trader Joe’s should be considering opening new locations in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Washington D.C. and Utah. Since this case was published, and within the past five years, Trader Joe’s increased their presence in more cities across the country. From 2017 to 2018 they have already opened or planed to open locations in Jacksonville, FL, Washington D.C. at Capitol Hill, Las Vegas, Nevada and many more according to their website. These cities were some of the cities listed as most popular up and coming cities for millennials/young professionals, which is their majority target audience for customers (Niche.com). After considering outside sources and more recent information, I would suggest the company considering opening locations in Arkansas,
A.
For half a century Trader Joe’s has increasingly become many consumers’ preferred destination for grocery shopping. Founded in 1967, Joe’s focused on providing their educated and sophisticated customers, with quality service and goods. These small stores have operated in a nontraditional manner compared to their competitors in the industry. Trader Joe’s has always taken this untraditional format with their operations, merchandising, and marketing efforts. They operate small 15,000 square foot stores without modern conveniences to keep overhead costs low. Joe’s merchandising tactics include 4,000 stock keeping units(SKUs), while bigger chains carry around 50,000 SKUs. Of these 4,000 SKUs around eighty …show more content…
They avoid following industry trends and are constantly rotating new products on their shelves (10-15 new products weekly). The company also avoids the usage of distributors and wholesalers because they buy directly from their manufacturers. Trader Joe’s also maintains complete secrecy about their relationships with them. The company’s marketing efforts are skim, they mostly advertise through their “Fearless Flyer” and on the radio, rather than shipping out mass coupon sheets or paying for TV time. Despite these differences, they have succeeded in becoming one of the top supermarkets in the U.S. and boast much higher sales per square foot figure than their competitors. However, in the wake of their success, others have caught on and have tried to mimic the small neighborhood shopping experience that Trader Joe’s had originally adopted. With the company looking onward to continued expansion and growth opportunities they need to react appropriately to the rise in competition and potentially consider changing some of their old …show more content…
To do this they must increase their presence online in both social media and mobile/online advertising (More on this in technology section). Geographic distribution of population is a vital trend for future expansion efforts for Trader Joe’s and it coincides with the aging population trend as well. In catering and attracting younger customers Joe’s should consider opening new locations in states and cities they are currently not in. When viewing exhibit 3 from the case you see the store count for each state, however this was in 2013. When only considering that chart, Trader Joe’s should be considering opening new locations in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Washington D.C. and Utah. Since this case was published, and within the past five years, Trader Joe’s increased their presence in more cities across the country. From 2017 to 2018 they have already opened or planed to open locations in Jacksonville, FL, Washington D.C. at Capitol Hill, Las Vegas, Nevada and many more according to their website. These cities were some of the cities listed as most popular up and coming cities for millennials/young professionals, which is their majority target audience for customers (Niche.com). After considering outside sources and more recent information, I would suggest the company considering opening locations in Arkansas,